BRITAIN’S top benefits scroungers were £300 a week better off on the dole than the average working family before welfare reforms, it has emerged.

Iain Duncan Smith is proud of the welfare reforms that have cut benefits for families [TIM CLARKE]

Figures reveal how 317 households milked the system for a decade because their claims went largely unchallenged.

Collectively they were £100,000 a week better off than workers on an average wage of £26,000.

Their taxpayer-funded lifestyles were exposed after Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith embarked on a root-and-branch reform of the UK’s complex benefits system.

Now handouts to almost 40,000 jobless families have been capped at £500 a week.

Speaking exclusively to the Daily Express, Mr Duncan Smith said: “Benefits were out of control and people were rightly outraged at some households receiving far more in benefits than the ordinary hard-working family.

“We have fixed this broken system by introducing a fair limit to make sure the system works for taxpayers who fund it. Our reforms ensure claiming benefits is no longer a more attractive option than being in work.”

Benefits were out of control and people were rightly outraged at some households receiving far more in benefits than the ordinary hard-working family

Iain Duncan Smith

Department for Work and Pensions figures show some families were picking up the equivalent of a £70,000-a-year salary.

Now 17 have seen their benefits slashed by £400, indicating they were receiving £900 a week.

More than 100 families pocketed the equivalent of a pre-tax annual salary of £68,000, while another 300 enjoyed the equivalent of a £40,000 wage.

Jonathan Isaby, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “It wasn’t right people got so much more by being on benefits than in paid work.”

Government experts say capping benefits will have saved more than £85million in a year.

Labour leader Ed Miliband has come under fire from one of his MPs for being soft on welfare.

Simon Danczuk said he should not oppose all benefit reforms, adding: “Where’s the money going to come from? I know people who won’t work and should.”